


The Ocean has a Long Memory, a Long Memory, a Large Imagination

by Obscure_ramblings



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Death and Revival, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Menstruation, Mentioned Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Other, Quynh | Noriko-centric, Temporary Character Death, Vomiting, mentioned nicolò di genova, mentioned yusuf al-kaysani, sea creatures - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29304576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obscure_ramblings/pseuds/Obscure_ramblings
Summary: The ocean has a long memory, a long memory, a pitiless sameness, constant, yet not. Possessing a cruelly large imagination. Quỳnh drowns and drowns and drowns again.It’s not always the same.Inhale. Death. Darkness."Andromache!"
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	The Ocean has a Long Memory, a Long Memory, a Large Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my nightmare! I was rereading this poem by one of my favourite Kiwi artists, Sugar Magnolia Wilson, for approximately the seventieth time (this is not an exaggeration) and even though I am one of those people who actively avoids reading even minor angst, my contrary brain spawned this fic virtually fully formed. The prose flow hit me like a freight train, you guys, and I just went with it. I did manage to conclude with a happy ending but before we get to that point please mind the tags and do feel free to request additional tags/warnings if you spot anything I've missed.

The Lake has a Long Memory, by Sugar Magnolia Wilson

_There were lights here last night  
charging up the dark matter between us  
and the water and the water  
and its sister, the sky.  
It is impossible to touch you.  
I don’t know who said this – it was either  
you or me or somebody’s drowned  
childhood friend, lost and lost and  
lonely forever on the bottom of the  
bottom of the lake.  
Somebody told me there is no  
bottom to this lake. That the water just  
goes down goes down and down forever.  
The lake has a long memory a long  
memory, a large imagination.  
When my mother left the spring  
on our land didn’t change. The water didn’t  
stop didn’t stop bubbling up from below.  
It didn’t cover itself in a shawl of blackbirds  
to indicate grief.  
Each litre of water that came up  
was different from the next and the next  
and each time and each time after that  
when I took a drink a drink I became  
a deep blue lantern teeming with invisible life.  
Nobody had gone anywhere at all.  
Nobody was ever lost at the bottom  
of the lake because in the lake  
it is impossible to be a stranger._

***

The ocean has a long memory, a long memory, a pitiless sameness, constant, yet not. Possessing a cruelly large imagination. Quỳnh drowns and drowns and drowns again.

It’s not always the same.

Hold on. Just one more minute. Just one more second. Just another tenth of a moment. A hundredth. Focus. Muscles tensed. Throat tight. Lungs bursting. Inhale. Chill, salty, brine ravaging tender tissue, pouring inward, stretched beyond capacity. Exhale. Inhale. Death. Darkness. 

Slippery strands of seaweed wend through the gaps in the mask that covers her face, her body, her being. Stains of rust-red blood overlying iron. Stains that exist only in her imagination because the water washes the blood away before it can settle. Washing it away. Away. The seaweed settles, wraps around her, cool, smooth, strangling, choking, taking, loosening. Stealing the breath from her lungs as she jerks back to life. Again.

The school of small fish darts soundlessly in jerky patterns, pale underbellies flashing, strobing as her eyes strain to focus. Impossible to predict, impossible to escape, impossible to evade, tasting her skin, her hair, her blood, always her blood. Fists hammering against the metal that surrounds her. Mouth stretched open in a scream, bubbles thrashing from her throat; once released, wafting upwards in a dichotomously gentle stream. Always upwards, while she remains below.

Hunger. Stomach cramping. Quỳnh bites her tongue, gulps down the blood before it can escape her mouth. Copper, tangy, almost sweet. A momentary respite from a belly full of nothing but salt water. Bitter salt slides from the corners of her eyes, blending with the cold embrace of the ocean around her. She is part of the ocean, yet separate. Not welcomed. Not wanted. Inhale. Death. Darkness.

Not a small fish this time. The turning of the moon. The bleeding that returns like clockwork, drawing the predators like a beacon. The dark grey shape approaching, fins slicing through the water lazily, effortlessly. Jagged teeth exposed in a gaping rictus, a parody of a grin. Nose bumping into the iron that contains her. Again. Blood swirling, billowing upwards, surrounding Quỳnh in a double shroud of iron. “Harder,” she thinks. “Harder, and break the chains.” It swims away, instead, and she is alone once more.

Tired. Bone tired. Weary beyond all weariness. A moment, just a moment of peaceful slumber. Faces, familiar and loved and hated and loved and resented and loved. Yusuf. Nicolò. Andromache. Andromache. “Where are you?”

Quỳnh cannot count the number of deaths. Nor cares to try. The merciless forces that bind her to this existence will shore up her reserves and tilt the axis of her being, wrenching her forward until she jerks awake, soundless scream echoing only inside her head. “Andromache!” 

Eyes open. Little light filters this far down. Pupils dark, wide, expanding then contracting. A movement. Real, or imagined? Quỳnh blinks. Blinks again. Inhale. Death. Darkness. 

Awake. Movement. Sound. Scrapes against her ears, her nerves, her soul. Interrupting the familiarity of boundless silence and constant tidal movements.

Quỳnh opens her mouth to cry out, to thrash against her iron coffin, but its sturdy embrace is gone. Her arms stretch out, so far away from her body; will they extend forever and wrap around the edges of the world? Muscles screaming in protest as they move in ways they’ve been bound against for too long.

A hand, encased in fabric, cold fabric, wet, chill, wrapping around her wrist. Touch. Real, or imagined? Inhale. Death. Darkness.

Light burns her eyes, so much, too much, not enough, more. Wasted muscles fighting frantically to propel herself upwards, anchored instead by a weight around her waist. Bubbles floating in a stream past her face. Not hers. Whose? Inhale. Death. Darkness.

Air, sweet relief. The sound of her own breathing. Then, her hands pressed against her ears, covering her eyes, not enough hands to hide. Cowering on the gritty surface that shifts under her in a wholly foreign way. The sky, so wide, so open, wheeling around in dizzying circles and crashing down to swallow her whole. Eyelids slam closed, shut it out, keep it out. Great gouts of fluid expelled from her stomach, retching and gasping, shaking, shaking. So cold. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Again. Lungs stretching, expanding. Exhale. Again.

No death. No darkness. What happens next? Quỳnh cannot remember. Her life is made up of increments of time between the death and the darkness. Inhale. Exhale. Again. Again.

Dark brown eyes open the barest sliver, lashes flickering, flighty, flinching back yet greedy to see. Connection. Green. Not the green of the ocean. No. The green of battles fought and won and lost. Continents traversed. Always moving, ever forwards. Countless people loved and lost, welcomed and farewelled, lost and remembered, forgotten and celebrated. Together. The green of comfort, of home in a world that sometimes seemed to have no place for them. For her. Her. Inhale. “Andromache.” Exhale.

Inhale. Sweet, warm breath brushing against her temple, her cheek, her lips. “Quỳnh. Quỳnh.” Until the end. 

Lost but now found. There are no strangers at the bottom of the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> Quite a departure from my usual wheelhouse of porn with feelings, like woah! If you feel so inclined, drop a comment below; I'd love to hear what you think.


End file.
